From the Portland Mercury, May 22, 2011

Mike Reese Didn’t Grow Up Dreaming He’d Be a Cop. But he’s the guy who just led Portland’s police force through its most “tumultuous” year in memory. We talk shootings, mental health, and Tasers—and how next year might be better.

Symmetry is a funny thing. When Mike Reese, then merely the commander of the Portland Police Bureau’s sprawling East Precinct, woke up the morning of May 12, 2010, he had somewhere important to be.

It was the press conference where Mayor Sam Adams would take over as police commissioner—amid a low ebb in community-police relations, and after a nasty budget squabble with then-Chief Rosie Sizer—and make Reese the city’s top cop.

“This is a can-do police chief,” the mayor said at the time, “and I’m going to be a can-do police commissioner.”

That night, the pair would come together again, immediately put to the test, to answer for what was then the third officer-involved shooting of 2010.

Keaton Otis, 25, a mentally disturbed man, was killed in a messy shootout with officers from the bureau’s gang enforcement unit. They had decided to tail him because they said he looked suspicious—walking perilously close to racially profiling Otis. And in the scuffle after they stopped him, officials say, Otis shot one officer, and three others returned fire 32 times.

One year later, on an anniversary Reese hoped would just “fly under the radar,” he also had somewhere to be: Nashville—for what his spokesman described as a national gathering of police chiefs. And, in the wee hours as Thursday, May 12, turned to Friday, May 13, there also was some news on an issue that has bedeviled the bureau in recent months: Two suspects sought in the gang-related shooting of a 14-year-old outside Lloyd Center had been arrested after weeks of investigation. No one was shot.

But if Reese, 53, took over at a low point for the bureau—mired in mistrust over the James Chasse settlement, reckoning with a troubling surge in shootings, and facing layoffs—has anything changed?

Portland cops have fired their guns in the line of duty six more times since Reese’s first day, killing three men also battling mental illness and nearly killing a fourth. It’s been the largest spike for the bureau in years—since before officers were armed with Tasers and given training on crisis intervention.

In one incident in March, two cops were shot, one of them sent to the hospital with serious injuries, when a mentally ill man opened fire from his Southeast duplex. The man, Ralph Clyde Turner, was not shot. Last fall, Reese fired the officer who shot and killed Aaron Campbell, citing his history of poor judgment on the job, but then courted controversy a month later when he promoted the officer who shot Raymond Gwerder, seemingly overlooking a far more costly history of mistakes.

Reese knew, even if the mayor didn’t, that the FBI was helping a 19-year-old Somali American plot mass murder in Pioneer Courthouse Square—and now Portland’s tighter with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Gang crime took over headlines last summer and led to new gun-control laws. And the budget? Reese found a way not only to avoid laying off cops, but also to hire more. But that’s only because Portland is suddenly drowning in cash.

The Mercury sat down with the chief earlier this month to talk about the year that was and the year that might be. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

MERCURY: Is every year like this? Is busy the right word?

MIKE REESE: It’s been tumultuous, actually, for the first year. Certainly the number of officer-involved shootings is higher than in the last few years, and if you combine that with the transition between chiefs, and the budget—the fact that we had to lay off 24 people last year and hold 31 sworn vacancies for six months—it’s been a monumental year.

How would you say you handled it? Rate yourself.

I would let other people rate me.

Okay then, here’s an easy one: What’s something good you’ve done this year?

[Long pause] I think trying to help the officers and the community understand the new dynamics around policing and that we’ve had a shift in what we do and who we deal with. Over the course of my career, it’s gone from traditional crime to where we’re dealing more and more with social disorder. It’s been so incremental over the last 25 years, particularly with the breakdown of services to people who are mentally ill, that we didn’t realize it was overwhelming us. This is a new dynamic.

But couldn’t you have done something sooner?

Absolutely. Our officers would have been better prepared and better trained to deal with the issues we’re facing now.

You didn’t realize this shift was coming before you became chief?

I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes and learned as I’ve gone on in the past year or so. But I guess I started to see it probably when I was Central Precinct commander. I started having conversations with social service partners and doing outreach.

Before we go any deeper, this is a good time to stop and talk about your background, how you got to be chief. Let’s have the basics.

I grew up in North Portland, but I moved around a lot as a kid. We were very poor, and my parents were divorced. I went to six different elementary schools before graduating from Roosevelt High School and then from Portland State, with a master’s in public administration. I’m married to a counselor at Lake Oswego High School. We have three daughters—and the oldest one just graduated from college a year ago. We live in Southwest.

You made your oldest daughter stand up during your City Club speech last month.

I was kind of joking. I said that as her father, I can say she’s looking for work. She’s still looking.

What do you do for fun—besides play the guitar?

My kids, the two younger ones, are in athletics so I go to a lot of basketball games. Lacrosse. Soccer. I coach basketball, and that takes up a lot of time. I also compete in triathlons.

I spotted you running down Willamette Boulevard last year, during the Portland Marathon.

I’ve done the Portland Marathon 10 times. I don’t specifically train for running events. I train for triathlons but I do half-marathons and marathons as part. This morning I got to work at 7 am and went for a nine-mile run. We had a good time.

How often do you play music?

We still get together. The band practices once a week.

Quick. What’s your favorite band? Song?

I love Carlos Santana. He’s probably my favorite guitar player, and “Black Magic Woman” is one of my favorite songs of all time.

You started working as a counselor at the Boys and Girls Club. How did that lead into law enforcement?

I was working at the Lents Boys and Girls Club and I was the person in charge of that facility. And our executive director was retiring, so I applied. The board of governors, they were very kind. They said, “God, Mike, we really love you, but you need a lot more experience. You should be the executive director in Salem or in Lebanon or in Boise.” But my family is here, and my daughter was young. So I started looking for a different profession. I saw an ad for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, applied—and it took seven months. During the course of it, I thought, well, I really like my job. I think I’ll just forget the law [enforcement] thing. And then they’d call me up two months later and tell me I was number one on the test, come take the physical. It went through a cycle. I’d think I didn’t want to do it, and then they’d call me. Finally they offered me the job, and I said okay.

And now you’re chief of police in Portland.

I didn’t start until I was 32. Most officers start when they’re 24 or 25.

Let’s talk about shootings. You’ve been consistent. Before taking over, you worried about mental health funding, and you’ve kept saying it while trying to explain all the shootings since then.

It’s very hard right now because the state and the county are making some difficult decisions about what to fund. Over the course of my career, we’ve seen the resources for mental health evaporate. They decided 30 years ago to deinstitutionalize people and build community-based treatment facilities, but they never built the other facilities. So you can’t walk in downtown Portland without coming across somebody who’s mentally ill. Almost all of the incidents last year where officers had to use their firearms involved people in some sort of mental health crisis. Not all of them were mentally ill but certainly some of them were responding to an emotional crisis.

What are you doing in the absence of those services?

We’re working with treatment providers and looking at the interaction between mentally ill people and police and where the system is breaking down. We’re telling officers—giving them information—about the new dynamic: Here’s what we are experiencing. Here are some options. Here are things you have to look for when you have someone who’s mentally ill and they’re abusing substances and have a weapon.

Some experts have criticized the bureau’s crisis training program, saying it’s best aimed at a specialized group of officers with the right temperament, not all officers. Are you considering changes?

We’ve gone down that road. It’s the right model. It works. Just yesterday, Central Precinct officers spent hours talking a person who was going to jump off of the Ross Island Bridge out of doing that. We’re having our hostage negotiation team be more involved. But going back to where we have just a few officers trained, I don’t think that’s a good model.

In explaining the recent shootings to community groups, you’ve said the majority of the decisions officers made were within policy. That means that some decisions were not. Should we expect further discipline?

Those cases are still going through the review and analysis process, so it would be premature for me to say that I foresee discipline coming out of those. As we’ve looked at those, with a snapshot review from the training division and from the strategic services division, officers used good tactics.

They used less lethal weapons when appropriate. They were faced with folks intent on harming the officers or the community who were armed with deadly weapons, and officers had to make difficult decisions

The incident with Ralph Turner, in which Officer Parek Singh was hospitalized, was resolved in a way that even critics of the bureau acknowledged was peaceful and professional. What worked?

We had two officers shot that day; one officer’s bulletproof vest protected him. That’s not a successful outcome for us, having two officers shot in an incident. Having said that, our officers reacted heroically and very professionally to a person who was trying to kill them.

You took flak from the Portland Police Association (PPA) when Officer Ron Frashour was fired. Is there still a rift with rank-and-file officers?

I have a good relationship with the leadership of the PPA. We’re going to disagree about labor and management issues sometimes, but we’re going to do it in a respectful and professional manner. [PPA President] Daryl Turner and I have the best interests of the bureau at heart… and the community at heart.

Promoting Leo Besner [the tactical unit officer who shot Raymond Gwerder in 2005, and who also has cost the city hundreds of thousands in legal costs in other use-of-force cases] caused outcry. At the promotion ceremony, you ripped “ubiquitous critics”? Were you courting that reaction?

With promotions, we look at a whole range of aspects: how people do in the promotional process, their history, and the position that’s available. I believe strongly in redemption. People are going to have bumps in the road, if you will. I’ve certainly made plenty of mistakes in my career. And when I have conversations with people about what I need to see from them to prepare themselves for that next step, and they do those things and they have made transformative changes, then I value that and I think they’re ready for promotion. I’m not going to make everybody happy. What I want is to be able to look in the mirror and say I did what I believe is right.

Some have compared Besner’s record to Frashour’s. In Frashour’s termination letter, you mentioned his “bumps in the road” to justify your decision.

It’s not fair to Sergeant Besner to characterize the Gwerder shooting as his responsibility. Certainly he was the person who fired the shot, but there was a monumental breakdown in communication, and the Portland Police Bureau realized that we had collective fault. We made some really dramatic changes, and to say that Leo Besner is solely responsible for what happened would be a mischaracterization of the events.

Let’s talk about resources. What’s the biggest crime-fighting challenge facing the bureau right now?

Other than the fact we’re dealing with so much social disorder: homelessness, mental illness, drug addiction, what’s ticking up now is burglaries and auto theft. Burglars [are] exploiting the internet [to fence their wares], so we have to adjust. We put together a burglary task force identifying prolific burglars and also looking at how we can get to the fencing operations

Does the bureau have enough resources to do its job?

No. We’re constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul. When we created the burglary task force we took away precinct detectives, and neighborhood officers, and drug and vice division officers to put them at that mission. That means we don’t have as many detectives investigating other property crimes or neighborhood response officers responding to problem areas and locations.

The Illegal Drug Impact Areas in Old Town have been approved, but the district attorney’s office needs to do some work. What’s being done in the meantime?

We’re working with other criminal justice partners, the DA, and parole and probation, to hold people accountable. For the last year, because of budget cuts, the DA hasn’t been prosecuting drug crimes. Officers tell me they go to court and see people getting higher fines for speeding tickets than for possessing heroin. That doesn’t work, when you allow people to spiral down into addiction. It makes it much tougher for us to break that cycle. If we can interdict that behavior sooner, when they first start getting addicted and get them into treatment and housing, employment, we’re going to be a lot more successful. The criminal justice system has to be whole, and it has to work.

It emerged during the city council hearing on the Illegal Drug Impact Areas that there are empty beds in the city’s Service Coordination Team program. How can there be empty beds at a time of need?

We’ve lowered the threshold from when we started the program. We were looking at the chronic offenders, the people who are doing the most damage, stealing everything that’s not nailed down to support their addiction. Some of those folks were being arrested 30 times in three months. So they were cycling in and out of the criminal justice system. But the bar has dropped down to three or four arrests. The recidivism rate among that group has dropped dramatically. We also increased capacity because the program was successful. We got a federal grant to increase outpatient services, so now we’re working to identify people who may not be getting the number of arrests but we know they’ve got a drug problem.

The gun crime task force the bureau resurrected last year—was that the mayor’s big push, or was it yours?

The mayor asked for some ideas about how to attack the problem of people acquiring firearms and using them in a violent manner. I was the first city sergeant assigned to the Youth Guns Anti-Violence Task Force. We kind of put that model together. Due to resource issues, it got disbanded about three years ago. But I thought we were very effective. So we talked to the mayor: Here’s an option. The mayor liked it, so we put it back together.

People hear about targeted gun, gang, and drug crime efforts, and they worry about racial profiling.

When we look at criminal behavior, we’re blind. But when you look specifically at gang crime, the problem we’re having right now is you’ve got African American young men who are being killed, and the suspects in those crimes are African American young men. When we’re having conversations about our enforcement efforts, and why we’re looking at these gangs, that’s who is involved and that’s who is being victimized.

Let’s talk about Tasers—and the city’s Taser policy.

Do you want me to Taser you?

I volunteered. I wanted to. [The city attorney's office told the police bureau no.] Have you ever Tasered anyone?

No.

There was a city audit on Taser use last year. And some lawsuits reported on in the Oregonian. When should Tasers be used?

When someone’s engaged in aggressive physical resistance, or is likely to engage in it, it’s appropriate to use a Taser. Dave Woboril [a deputy city attorney] has talked to community groups about our Taser policy. We provide scenarios about where we use Tasers, and people thought we were very thoughtful and very judicious.

For example, you get a person in a stolen car, and we get into a pursuit. Maybe they stop the car and get out and take off running. Is it appropriate for us to Taser that person to keep them from getting into a neighborhood as they’re going over the fence? When we ask community groups, they say that’s a pretty good use of a Taser to stop that person from getting into my backyard. Or when someone balls up their fist and you can tell they’re ready for a fight—they want to assault an officer. Is that an inappropriate use of a Taser, as opposed to us going hands-on and punching the person.

Would running from an officer always be considered an act of active resistance?

We have to look at the situation. What threat does this person pose to the community? What’s the severity of the crime? What are your options? Are you there by yourself, or do you have four or five officers with you. It’s the totality of circumstances.

Quickly, on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. How detailed are the council’s annual reports going to be?

We’re working with the mayor right now, and deciding what information needs to be captured—providing as much detail as we can without compromising investigations or the identity of investigators who are working undercover.

To join a federal investigation, do you need the police commissioner’s permission? Or do you merely need to notify him?

The mayor and I will be on the same page as we move forward. He’s been very supportive of our involvement.

So you’re a boss now. And you’ve been a boss for a while. Do you miss anything about being on patrol?

When I go out and work shifts, I really feel like I’m missing my calling. That ability to be in the patrol car, out in a neighborhood helping people, it’s powerful.

By Jenny Westberg, Portland Mental Health Examiner

There were six officer-involved shootings in 2010. (Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdxjeff/)

On Dec. 27, Portland police shot Marcus Lagozzino, 34, critically injuring him, in the sixth officer-involved shooting of 2010. Within a week, 2011 started with another officer-involved shooting – then another.

At 1:37 a.m. on Jan. 1, police arrested a man at Club 915 in downtown Portland. While interacting with the crowd, an officer opened fire. His action did not harm anyone – because he missed. (See The Portland Tribune, Jan. 3) Around 4 p.m. the same day, another officer-involved shooting took place. This time it resulted in the death of a 60-year-old man.

In 2010, there were the same number of officer-involved shootings as there were in 2009, 2008 and 2007, combined. Two of the victims were black. Four were white. All were in crisis from acute mental illness or untreated addiction. Except for Lagozzino, all are now dead.

Officer-Involved Shooting Victims, 2010

• Dec. 27, 2010 – Marcus Lagozzino, 34
• Dec. 17, 2010 – Darryel Dwayne Ferguson, 45
• Nov. 23, 2010 – Craig Boehler, 46 (shot by police, but died from smoke inhalation)
• May 12, 2010 – Keaton Dupree Otis, 25
• Mar. 22, 2010 – Jack Dale Collins, 58
• Jan. 29, 1010 – Aaron Marcell Campbell, 25

In Lagozzino’s case, police say they were advised he might be contemplating “suicide-by-cop.” The same thing was said of Campbell.

James Drylie, an ex-police captain who is now executive director of the School of Criminal Justice and Public Administration at Kean University in New Jersey, told The Oregonian that about a third of the 300 police shootings ruled justifiable each year could be characterized as “suicide-by-cop.”

“Bizarre” Term

Jason Renaud, of the Mental Health Association of Portland, objects to the term.

“That the [Portland Police Office of Public Information] uses and promotes the verbiage ‘suicide-by-cop’ is bizarre,” says Renaud. “It implies several conditions – all entirely false:
“1. That violent suicide is a rational, reasonable state of mind. That a suicidal person is determined and unswerving from suicide.
“2. That police officers are unwilling participants.
“3. That police officers have little or no choice but to comply with suicidal demands.
“4. That suicidal people repeatedly trick or connive or stage situations where they cause lethal force to be used against themselves.
“5. That because of fearsome trickery police officers are not responsible for their actions.”

But, says Renaud, “It’s important to remember that the vast majority of police contact comes without violence of any sort.” When it does happen, however, it’s most often someone in crisis because of acute mental illness or active addiction.

According to Renaud, “It seems such a problem of timing. The cops arrive in the midst of a crisis and ‘have no choice’ but to use violence. What if they came an hour earlier? Or a day earlier? What if there was a worthwhile community mental health system which would anticipate crisis and manage it versus stick their heads in the sand? What if that worthwhile community mental health system could come a day or a week or a month prior to the crisis?”

As for “suicide-by-cop,” Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch says, “No matter what they say, it is a homicide when one person (a cop or anyone else) kills another person using such violent means.”

And as for 2010, it ended sadly – just as it began.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Please note:

This article was updated Jan. 5 to clarify that the first officer-involved shooting of 2011 (at Club 915) did not result in injury or death. There was a death, but it was not a result of an officer’s weapon. Also, the article now includes new information: (1) the officer intentionally fired at someone; (2) he missed.

In the same incident, the date was corrected from Jan. 2 to Jan. 1.

My regrets for any confusion, and thanks to Dan Handelman for pointing it out. — JW
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

From the Portland Tribune, July 16, 2010

Even today, Felesia Otis wonders if her son, Keaton, could have ever been civilly committed before he died in a May 12 gunfight with police. She talks about her family’s life in this video by Portland Tribune photojournalist Christopher Onstott.

From The Oregonian, July 13, 2010

Lynda Hughes can tell when her son, Devin [Hughes], wavers on the edge of psychosis.

It’s hard to catch him before he falls.

The towering 26-year-old stays safe and content when he takes his medicine and lives with people who look after him. “I can go along for a while, and I can breathe, and think Devin’s being taken care of, he’s healthy,” Hughes says.

But his disease cycles. Stress builds, or Devin tires of side effects and stops taking his pills. Then he unsettles. Devin wanders into his mother’s prosthetics business in Bend, shuts himself in a room and refuses to leave.

“The second day, he starts laughing funny. Then he starts yelling at the people in the attic,” she says. “From there, it gets really crazy… everybody’s trying to kill him. Then I have to call the police. And that’s the hardest thing ever.”

Devin needs doctors, not cops. But Hughes has few options.

Oregonians with well-controlled mental illness generally can find routine care. But once they grow too sick to keep appointments, the health system offers little support until they explode into crisis and threaten themselves or others. Only then do resources pour in, from the time police and emergency room staff spend on psychiatric crises to $458 million to build two state mental hospitals.

Oregon spends $700 million a year on mental health, much of it fixing crises or treating people in hospitals and jails, estimates Jason Renaud, cofounder of the Mental Health Association of Portland. That meets 40 to 50 percent of the need, he says. Richard Harris, who oversees Oregon’s Addictions and Mental Health Division, sees a similar gap in publicly funded care.

“In the adult mental health system, we’re serving about 46 percent of the need,” Harris says. For adult addictions, it’s 24 percent.

Oregon could help more people, more cheaply and effectively, by preventing psychiatric crises instead of practically requiring them before giving care, health experts say. But barriers from budget cuts to federal accounting rules make it hard to intervene until people endanger themselves or others.

“Why don’t we help these kids while they’re younger, to keep them out of prison?” Hughes asks. “Why can’t we build more places that will house these people and keep them safe? And keep other people safe from them, by keeping them well?”

“And, hopefully, they can enjoy life a little.”

Scarce options for early intervention are a big reason police repeatedly encounter people with out-of-control mental illness. While roughly 4 percent of Multnomah County residents have a serious mental illness, Portland Police estimate that 12 percent of subjects they used force on last year were mentally ill. Some of those contacts were deadly, as when Portland Police shot Jack Dale Collins in March and Keaton Otis in May. Both men had chronic mental illnesses. Otis’ parents and Collins himself had tried but failed to get urgent psychological care in the days before they threatened police.

Many police train to deal with mentally ill people. Most encounters end with police calming people or helping them get medical care. Even then, it’s unhealthy for someone to grow so ill that police get called and a poor use of police time, says Derald Walker, president of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, a nonprofit that provides much of Multnomah County’s mental health care.

“Any time a police officer really has to engage with someone who is mentally ill on the streets, we define it as a failure of the social service system,” he says.

The first diagnosis of mental illness usually comes after a crisis, often in adolescence. With proper treatment, most people control their disease and improve. They often “graduate” from hospital or acute care to outpatient treatment, says Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, Cascadia’s Chief Medical Officer. But “part of the nature of having a serious mental illness is that it waxes and wanes,” she says. When the disease cycles down, some patients stop taking their medicine or seeing their counselor or doctor. They may think they don’t need help, or just be incapable of seeking it.

The cycle is etched in Lynda Hughes’ heart.

Devin was diagnosed with autism in first grade, Hughes says, but he was bright and “did pretty well” in his family and social life, until he was 19. Then he started to hear voices and lose control. He lost the ability to work and withdrew from others. Eventually, he found medicines that could restore reality, including lithium and the antipsychotic Abilify. But he hates the side effects and has quit taking the drugs when he’s on his own. “I wanted to see who I was,” Devin has explained to his mom.

For years, Devin has cycled between hospitals, group homes and more independent living, while Hughes struggles to find a safe place he can live and thrive. Devin has lived with his mother and with an older brother, but that ended in disaster. The 6-foot-6 youth has threatened to kill his mother, and accused her of trying to murder him with poisoned vanilla extract.

When Devin got an apartment with some roommates, he ate so little that his waist shrank six inches in a few months. Some mornings he’d arrive at Hughes’ office soaking wet from sleeping out under a tree. Once, she found Devin in his bedroom surrounded by knives and machetes, plotting to cut off his own hands.

Often, at those low points, someone calls police, who take Devin to a hospital where doctors medicate him, then “put him back on the street” hours later, Hughes says.

Devin has been hospitalized at his sickest several times, including two stays in the Oregon State Hospital. Nursing him back from the depths is slow and expensive.

“The more years it goes on, the longer it takes him to get out of it,” Hughes says.

In 2008, Devin wound up in the hospital in Bend in February, March and June. He got out in late June, just before Hughes’ 55th birthday, and vanished. He wandered to California, where police picked him up twice and hospitalized him twice. Hughes drove to fetch Devin, bringing him to Bend’s St. Charles Hospital, which wouldn’t admit him because he was not “an imminent danger” to himself or others, she says. Only after Hughes threatened to sue did St. Charles let Devin in. He spent the next 30 days there. The bill ran 43 pages, and totaled $67,904.

“That’s not including all of the doctors,” Hughes says. “And do you know how much they charge? I have a couple of bills for $8,000.”

When he got out, Devin spent five months in the Oregon State Hospital, at a cost of $70,000 or more.

Today, Devin lives in a mental health rehab home outside of Boardman. He makes a little jewelry, and socializes with other residents. He has started playing basketball, a hobby he hadn’t touched in years. He seems safe and relatively happy. For his care, Devin pays $523.70 a month from his disability insurance benefits.

A couple of weeks ago, Devin told his mother that the home will make him leave soon. “They said it’s a treatment facility, and he’s well enough to go.”

She has no idea where he might live next. Some health workers have advised her to wait for Devin to commit a crime and be sent to jail. “That’s how we handle it,” Hughes was told.

“It’s so frustrating and so horrible to go through this over and over,” she says. “You just get him well, and then you know you have to go through this again because he doesn’t stay stable. The system isn’t set up to let him stay stable.”

From the Portland Tribune, June 17, 2010

Portland police and other emergency service providers will have a new place to bring mentally ill people in crisis besides the county jail or local hospitals.

Multnomah County, the city of Portland and the nonprofit Central City Concern reached a final deal Thursday, June 17, to build and operate a mental health intake center above the Hooper “sobering center” east of the Burnside Bridge, 20 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Groundbreaking for the new Crisis Assessment and Treatment Center is planned in August, with completion expected about six months later.

The $5.3 million facility will feature professional and peer counselors who can work with mentally ill people experiencing breakdowns or other crises, and 16 beds where they can be lodged in a safe, dormitory-style setting.

Officials have talked about the need for such a center for years. But the need became more urgent in the aftermath of the September 2006 death of James Chasse Jr., a schizophrenic, who died in police custody from serious injuries suffered when he was tackled during his arrest. Two others – the Jan. 29 shooting of Aaron Campbell at a Sandy Boulevard apartment complex, and the May 12 shooting of Keaton Dupree Otis in the Lloyd District – also involved people who were said to suffer from various mental illnesses.

Emergency services providers often lack the skills to identify and handle mentally ill people undergoing episodes or outbreaks, and the results can sometimes be tragic.

“This helps fill a very important gap in our mental health system,” said County Chair Jeff Cogen, after the cooperative agreement was finalized with the city and Central City Concern, which operates the Hooper center. The complex agreement, in the works more than two years, called for Central City Concern to relocate its Hooper Detox Center to a renovated facility at a former Ramada Inn, at North Williams Avenue and Weidler Street near the Rose Quarter.

Drunks picked up by police or other authorities are brought to the sobering center for medical treatment until they sober up, and then moved to the detox center, a residential program that allows them to continue to receive substance abuse treatment.

The new mental health intake center was seen as a good fit for the sobering center on the ground floor.

The new facility isn’t going to solve all the problems with the mental health system in the city and the county, said Central City Concern Executive Director Ed Blackburn. But “not a week goes by” when there isn’t a need for such a facility, he said.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams helped expedite the allocation of $2 million in promised city urban renewal funds to speed up development of the intake center. The state provided $1 million, the county put up $842,000 and $1.4 million came from New Market tax credits.

Operating the center will require more than $3 million a year, most of it from federal and state Medicaid funds. The city and county agreed to split the remaining costs, which are estimated at $550,000 a year for each entity, said Dave Austin, a county spokesman for human services programs.

Multnomah County will seek bids from an outside entity to operate the new Crisis Assessment and Treatment Center, Austin said.

Central City Concern could be one of the nonprofit or other groups bidding to run the program.

From KGW.com, June 8, 2010

Keaton Otis spent the last months of his life mostly alone in his bedroom suffering from delusion and depression, his mother told a Multnomah County grand jury.

Otis shot a police officer May 12 during a traffic stop near Lloyd Center and died in a hail of return gunfire.

In May, a Multnomah County grand jury decided there was no criminal liability on the part of the police. A 708-page transcript of the jury proceeding and audio of the 9-1-1 calls were released Monday.

The grand jury report verified that a bullet fired by Otis struck Officer Christopher Burley. And the Albina Ministerial Alliance renewed its call Tuesday for a review of Portland Police Bureau shootings, both by the city and the FBI.

Felesia Otis said her son started acting strangely in 2008, suggesting that people were underneath the house planting listening devices, she told grand jurors. He would point at neighbors on the sidewalk or lawns and question why they stood there.

She suggested to Keaton that they get medical help for him. “Keaton, we need to talk to somebody,” she told jurors. “You need some help.”

She said Keaton realized something was amiss, but he focused on his depression. She focused on the delusional behavior, which she feared was bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

After seeing a therapist, he started taking anti-psychotics and anti-depressants.

The therapist would change the amounts or types of drugs, she said. Always a creative person, her son felt that the drugs stifled his artistic abilities and he stopped taking the drugs.

Last November, Keaton retreated to his bedroom and largely stopped talking and eating, she said. The only meals he would eat were ones taken to his room, she said. He would have stilted conversations with her and his father. He stopped talking to cousins he used to have animated conversations with.

He dropped about 50 pounds off his 6 foot 4 frame, to 155 pounds that day he died.

In the autopsy, Oregon State Medical Examiner Dr. Karen Gunson told grand jurors she was startled by how thin Otis was, describing him as “extremely slim, very slender, with long thin fingers and toes.”

Felesia Otis said she and husband feared for Keaton’s life. They wanted to have him committed, but current medical practices and laws said that without an imminent threat to his life, that was not possible.

She told jurors a therapist told her “basically, you are just going to have to wait until a crisis comes up before you are going to be able to get him in.”

Keaton did manage some outings, she said. He would take her Toyota (the one he was driving during the shooting) and go to the store. She attended a seminar where the suggestion was made that such trips were mentally healthy, as the delusional person would see everyday, normal life.

He would regularly go to a convenience store, purchase a bag of Doritos and go to Pier Park in North Portland, sitting quietly by himself before returning in about an hour, she said.

Police did tell her of a confrontation Keaton had where he threatened another man with a baseball bat. Keaton denied it took place, she said, then walked into his bedroom. She did check her car after that to make sure he wasn’t carrying a bat.

She and her husband didn’t worry about the incident too much. A year earlier, Keaton had been ticketed for parking illegally and had no problems with the police officer who issued the citation.

But they realized Keaton was in need of serious mental help. On Monday, May 10th, an appointment was made for that Thursday with a nurse practitioner. Her son died Wednesday.

Felesia Otis wept as she explained to the grand jury the difficulty of having a relative who needs help, but families unable to intervene in a meaningful way.

“You are suffering,” she told jurors. “The body is there. But they are not. There is a part of them that’s gone a little bit every day.”

Earlier, she described Keaton’s upbringing.

As a baby, he skipped the babbling and started speaking clearly, with full words. He went to Sabin grade school, then Buckman Elementary, an arts magnet school. His circle of friends included students from Southeast Asia, Africa, Mexico and Russia. He took Japanese as an elective.

In middle school, he entered a program called the Prospective Gents Club, which grooms boys to become responsible adults.

She and her husband are devout Christians, she told jurors, and a signature day in Keaton’s life was a trip to Lincoln City at age 18 to be baptized in the Pacific Ocean. Into adulthood, her son was would always give thanks before a meal, even at the height of his depression. She said Keaton is in Heaven.

Jurors were clearly touched by her testimony.

“I want to applaud you and your husband for doing a wonderful job,” one juror told her.

“Don’t stop as a wife and mother . . . and most of all, as a woman,” another told her.

A third told her, “please, for us, stay strong.”

by Jenny Westberg

Keaton Otis was just 25 years old when he died on May 12, shot by police after a routine traffic stop in Northeast Portland.

He was the third victim of a police shooting in Portland this year. In the latest tragedy, Officer Christopher Burley was wounded. Thankfully, he is expected to return to work next week. Keaton Otis was not so fortunate.

Otis had a mental illness. So did the other two people killed by police in the first half of 2010. So did most of the individuals who have died at the hands of Portland police over the last several years.

Portland Tragedies Mount

Otis’s death came only a day after the city agreed to pay $1.6 million to the family of James Chasse, a Portland man with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who was beaten to death by police in 2006. It came less than a week before a memorial service for Jack Dale Collins, who also lived with mental health challenges and was shot to death by police on March 22. It was just months after Aaron Campbell was shot in the back by police responding to a crisis call. And it followed a series of similar deaths, including those of Deontae Keller, Richard “Dickie” Dow, Jose Meija Poot, Kendra James, and James Jahar Perez.

Some Portlanders were stunned. “We lost another? So soon?”

Others think it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.

Traffic Stop Turns Deadly

On May 12 around 6:20 p.m., gang-enforcement officers headed out after a break to patrol the streets. Officer Ryan Foote spotted Keaton Otis driving a silver Toyota Corolla on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He noticed that Otis was a young African American man, wearing a hoodie and slouched in the driver’s seat.

Otis had not broken any laws at that point, but Foote thought he looked “kind of” like a gangster and decided to check his license plates – even over the objection of his partner, Officer James Defrain, who asked, “Are you seriously going to run that plate?”

From that point things went crashing downhill.

Escalating Response

Officers saw Otis changing lanes without signaling, and they turned on their lights, sirens and air horns. Otis, however, did not immediately pull over. Police Chief Mike Reese later said this “heightened officers’ concern.”

The situation escalated when Otis twice pulled over, then drove away again. Police called for cover and four police cars boxed in Otis’ vehicle. Officers ordered Otis out of the car, but he became angry, swearing at them. Police suspected – correctly, it turned out – that he had a weapon.

Officers grabbed at Otis, clamped his wrist in a pain-compliance hold, and fired their Tasers and stun guns. Otis, however, managed to remove a gun from his glove compartment, and shot Officer Burley between the legs. Police opened fire. They kept shooting, firing so many rounds that another officer said it “sounded like World War III.” They shot 32 times. Twenty-three of the bullets hit their mark.

Parents Were Desperate

Keaton’s mother and stepfather, Felesia and Joseph Otis, told detectives their son was diagnosed with a mood disorder, but had stopped taking his medication. They tried and failed to get their son treatment. In desperation, they even turned to extremes, trying to have Keaton committed to the hospital.

Will Hall, a Portland therapist and mental health advocate, understands how parents feel when their child is in trouble. However, he cautions against the assumption that forced treatment is the solution.

“The Otis family is right,” Hall says. “More services and support are needed for families and individuals. The mistake here is to view this as either do nothing or force people into the hospital.

“Reaching for expanded commitment looks like a quick fix, but it isn’t. Rounding people up in mental hospitals is not a magic solution; forced commitment can traumatize people – I know, it traumatized me. It can drive people away from care, lead to a revolving door and create worse problems in the long run.

“We need good holistic and community-controlled voluntary services for families and individuals in distress, to support people before they reach the crisis point. We don’t need a return to the asylum mentality of the 1950s.”

Another Loss

Yesterday at a press conference, Chief Reese defended officers’ actions, including the 32 gunshots. A grand jury found that the police had not exceeded their authority. There was no criminal liability.

But a family lost a son.

In a city where police seem almost casual with their use of deadly force, people with mental illness or in crisis are most at risk.

And to many Portland mental health advocates, it feels like they barely get the chance to bury one of their brothers or sisters before it’s time to close the casket on the next.

Keaton Otis, a person with a diagnosis of a mental illness, was shot and killed by Portland Police officers on May 12, 2010 during a routine traffic stop.

Police Documents

Record of the Deceased – Keaton Otis (PDF)

Witness Testimony to Homicide Investigators – (PDF 22 MB)

Detective Reports – (PDF, 7.8 MB)

Witness Officers’ Reports – (PDF, 2.0 MB)

Criminalist Reports – (PDF, 6.1 MB)

Property Evidence Receipts – (PDF, 6.4 MB)

Grand Jury Transcripts

Order Releasing Transcripts (PDF)

Transcript of Grand Jury Proceedings (PDF, 3.6 MB)

Other Documents

Mayor Adams’ Statement on the Keaton Otis Grand Jury – June 1, 2010

Keaton Family Statement (PDF)

Officer Reports

Officer Chris Burley – (PDF 2 MB)
Sgt Don Livingston – (PDF 2.7 MB)
Officer James Defrain – (PDF 2.8 MB)
Officer Andy Polas – (PDF 2.1 MB)
Officer Cody Berne – (PDF 3 MB)
Officer Ryan Foote – (PDF 1.4 MB)
Officer Aaron Dauchy – (PDF 1.5 MB)
Officer Patrick Murphy – (PDF 1.7 MB)

Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD) Log

Audio File: Police Radio Communications

Audio File: 9-1-1 Call

Diagram of Scene

Video of Police Shooting – Slow Motion (Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office)

News Reports

Live updates: Grand jury releases transcripts in Keaton Otis shooting inquiry, The Oregonian – June 7, 2010

Officer Hit in Keaton Otis Shooting is Walking Again, Portland Mercury – June 7, 2010

Grand Jury Report: Otis’s Lifeless Body ‘Taken into Custody Without Incident’, The Skanner – June 7, 2010

Otis Grand Jury Transcripts May Be Released Today, The Skanner – June 7, 2010

Business at Red and Black Cafe in Southeast Portland increases after police officer turned away, The Oregonian – June 7, 2010

Grand jury documents released in Otis shooting, KOIN.com – June 7, 2010

Portland Officer Chris Burley not angry at man who shot him, but wishes he could have gotten help, The Oregonian – June 3, 2010

Hall Monitor: Friendly Fire, Portland Mercury – June 3, 2010

Officer Shot By Keaton Otis Recaps Traffic Stop, KPTV.com – June 3, 2010

The Otis shooting magnifies how things go so wrong so fast, The Oregonian – June 2, 2010

New Police Review Report: 60 Percent of Police Bias Complaints Dismissed, Portland Mercury – June 2, 2010

Portland police explain what led to the fatal stop of Keaton Otis, The Oregonian – June 1, 2010

Portland police release investigative reports, 9-1-1 calls from fatal shooting of Keaton Otis, The Oregonian – June 1, 2010

BREAKING: Keaton Otis Was “Still Moving” Four Minutes After Police Shot Him, Portland Mercury – June 1, 2010

32 Shots: Keaton Otis Shooting Audio and Documents (Updated with Details from Reese and Adams News Conference), Willamette Week – June 1, 2010

Adams to Push for Drug-Testing Police, Willamette Week – June 1, 2010

Police chief: Officers unaware driver was armed in May 12 shooting, Portland Tribune – June 1, 2010

Adams: Police, city will try different approach after shooting, Portland Tribune – June 1 2010

POD: Otis tailed by police because he wore a hoodie on a hot day, Portland Sentinel – June 1, 2010

Police audio tapes of Keaton Otis shooting released, KOIN.com – June 1, 2010

Police release more details in fatal traffic stop, KATU.com – June 1, 2010

Police Release Details Of Fatal Shooting, KPTV.com – June 1, 2010

Report: Police shot Otis 23 times, KGW.com – June 1, 2010

Workgroup fails to find police bias; no changes needed, Portland Tribune – May 31, 2010

Keaton Otis and Roger Witter both owned a gun, but it didn’t pay off for either in their moments of crisis, The Oregonian – May 29, 2010

Portland mayor releases statement on latest police fatal shooting, The Oregonian – May 28, 2010

Grand Jury Finds No Criminal Liability in Fatal Police Shooting of Keaton Otis, Willamette Week – May 28, 2010

Grand Jury: No Criminal Liability in Keaton Otis Death, Portland Mercury – May 28, 2010

Mayor Sam Adams’ Statement on the Keaton Otis Grand Jury (press release) – May 28, 2010

Grand Jury: No Charges For Officers In Keaton Otis Shooting, OPB News – May 28, 2010

Another Mentally Ill Man Dead: Will a Police Shakeup Change Anything?, Portland Mercury – May 28, 2010

Portland grand jury finds no criminal wrongdoing in police shooting of Keaton Otis on May 12, The Oregonian – May 27, 2010

Hall Monitor: Respectful Silence, Portland Mercury – May 27, 2010

Adams: Police, city will try different approach after shooting, Portland Tribune – May 27, 2010

Portland Copwatch raises concerns about Keaton Otis grand jury, The Portland Observer – May 26, 2010

“Enough is Enough”: Parents of Aaron Campbell and Keaton Otis Speak Near Tears, Portland Mercury – May 21, 2010

Help Is on the Way… Perhaps: Promised Mental Health Center “Relatively Certain,” Portland Mercury – May 20, 2010

Officer shot in the legs in Lloyd area traffic stop released from hospital, KOIN.com – May 19, 2010

Update on Last Week’s Shooting: Cops Say Officer Shot by Suspect, Willamette Week – May 18, 2010

+++

Officer Shot Last Week Released from Hospital, Portland Mercury – May 18, 2010

Portland ministers group to launch independent investigation into fatal police shooting of Keaton Otis, The Oregonian – May 17, 2010

Albina Ministerial Alliance Speaks on Chasse Settlement, Last Week’s Shooting and the New Chief, Willamette Week – May 17, 2010

Albina Ministries Demands “Transparent, Swift and Fair Investigation” of Police Shooting, Portland Mercury – May 17, 2010

Albina Ministerial Alliance to investigate Otis shooting, KOIN.com – May 17, 2010

Parents of Ore. man shot by police say he was ill, The Seattle Times – May 15, 2010

Parents of Portland man shot by police say he had a mood disorder, The Oregonian – May 14, 2010

Authorities identify man who was shot and killed after wounding Portland officer, The Oregonian – May 14, 2010

Watch the Video: Wednesday’s Police Shooting, Willamette Week – May 14, 2010

Friend of Man Shot By Police: “He always told me not to mess with guns,” Portland Mercury – May 14, 2010

Portland Police Identify Man Shot In Traffic Stop, OPB News – May 14, 2010

Police identify man shot by officers, KOIN.com – May 14, 2010

Otis family statement, KOIN.com – May 14, 2010

Parents: Man Shot By Police Had Mood Disorder, KPTV.com – May 14, 2010

Police Identify Man Fatally Shot By Police, KPTV.com – May 14, 2010

Shot and Killed by Gang Enforcement — But Not a Gangster? The Skanner – May 14, 2010

Police traffic stop in Northeast Portland quickly turned deadly, The Oregonian – May 13, 2010

New Portland police chief details Wednesday evening’s police-involved shooting, The Oregonian – May 13, 2010

Adams and Reese Debut: Details Still Sketchy on Cop Shooting, Willamette Week – May 13, 2010

New Police Commissioner Gets First New Challenge (UPDATED with Adams comments this morning), Willamette Week – May 13, 2010

Witness Account of Police Shooting: “One Shot was Fired and Then a Whole Shit Ton of Shots were Fired,” Portland Mercury – May 13, 2010

Video captures deadly police shooting (Contains graphic language), KGW.com – May 13, 2010

Protesters surround N.E. Portland crime scene, The Oregonian – May 12, 2010

Portland officer wounded in a shootout that leaves a suspect dead, The Oregonian – May 12, 2010

What We Know About Tonight’s Shootings, Portland Mercury – May 12, 2010

Injured Officer Identified In Fatal Shooting, KPTV.com – May 12, 2010

VIDEO – Dispatch calls detail deadly Keaton Otis shooting, KGW.com

VIDEO – Man Dead, Officer Shot In NE Portland Traffic Stop, KPTV.com

VIDEO – Injured Officer Recovering After NE Portland Shooting, KPTV.com

The shooting of Keaton Otis from pdx97217 on Vimeo.